A Problem Perplex, MHC + X

Abstract

There is a radio-sketch in which Sir Walter Raleigh, having voyaged to the New World, makes a telephone call back to a friend or sponsor. In it he enthuses about the custom of smoking tobacco, the pleasure it brings, and even suggests it might be a thing to import. Trying hard to convince, he never penetrates his friend’s incredulity, formed by the belief that anyone who submits to putting rolled, dried leaves in their mouth and setting fire to them in the pursuit of happiness has clearly been in the colonies too long. In first encountering MHC restriction I responded in a similar vein. It was a Wednesday seminar at Harvard Medical School and the message was that you take cells, treat them with trinitrophenyl (TNP), and then immunize a mouse. Then, abracadabra, out come T cells with specificity for H-2 and TNP. Surely the vicissitudes of comprehending inbred strains of mice and MHC serology were bad enough without this molecular improbability! However, it did not go away, and in fact became more complex with the eventual formulation of MHC + X.